Godfrey Family Farms is going to have some pigs and veal ready at the end of Dec. I'm planning on getting 1/2 a pig. Is anyone interested in getting togehter and splitting the other half? It drops the price $.25 a lb. when you get a whole animal. I've been really happy with the veal and chickens I got form them. So let me know!

Godfrey Family Farms- www.godfreyfamilyfarms.com
is bringing some chickens and eggs to the east bay on Oct. 10. They are delivering my half veal to me as well as some chickens, so I'm offering to host pick up for anyone else that's interested. I know there are up to 17 chickens available at this time.

$3.75 per pound at an average of 3-4 lbs for chickens
$5/dozen for eggs

I believe the drop off will be very late afternoon or in the early evening on the 10th since they're coming from the farmer's market in SF and have drop off to do in the city first. Since full payment is due when everything is dropped off, you would need to be here at the time or give me your check in advance as I can't pay for more than my own order. I should have the weights on the chickens no later than Friday the 9th and maybe even on the 8th. I will have a large cooler I can keep them in, but not a freezer, so you'd want to pick up everything pretty quickly.

Let me know no later than Monday, Oct. 5th if you're interested. Reply directly to my page by clicking on my photo. I'll have more information later!

Keep in mind that we will be getting at least a half even if Sandy's group comes in. Sandy, what size share are you thinking of? If a whole animal (and this is a big one)is 600 lbs., a half would be 300, a quarter would be 150, an 1/8th would be 75, 1/16 would be 37.5 lbs. You can keep going from there. But if you get less than 1/8th, I'd recc. to the group that you do the subdividing on your own because there will be some trade-offs happening with the cuts and I don't want to be in charge of that.

To know how many we have, all you have to do is look back at the former comments. I listed everyone a couple of days ago. We have chages since then however to take into account. Renee says she's not in this time around. Brian wants to switch to an 1/8. So we have 3 shares of 1/8's.

Vincent, a whole cow can run around 800 - 1,200 lbs. or more. I would guess that our half will run around 400 to 600 lbs. That's why I was doing the math for 500 lbs. for a half. So that makes 1/4 = 250 lbs. and 1/8 equal to 125 lbs. For 30 to 50 lbs., you are more interested in a 16th or less.

To do that, you'd need some to take that other 1/16. Anyone out there intersted?

Brian, have you been able to do any research yet? We may be able to get a smaller animal, but we don't know until we try.

I did a quick check at some of the ranchers listed. I'd recc. you check into Chileno, Clark Summit, Gleason Ranch, & Morris. They're all closer to us than the others and they do direct sales, which means they will deal directly with us.

June seems to be harvest time, so we need to get onto this ASAP. Lots of places have an advance sign up, so we may be too late. So it would be a good idea to ask several different suppliers.

Some have lots of info on their sites, some you'll need to email to get prices. All you'll need to email to find out availibility.

You need to add up all the costs to come up with the total price per pound. Some break it down to hung weight, harvest fee, butchering and packaging fee. Some add it all up, so they initially look far more expensive until you do the math! Also, I think we'd want to be able to specify our cuts and I think some charge more for that. But we've found it can be pretty important for the quality and makes it much easier to divide up. Tamar has given us a great worksheet that lists all the cuts to request. It's listed under the Toolbox. It's made up for 20 shares, but we can refigure that part out!

So Brian, if you could gather that info - availibility and cost for each supplier, that would be a great start.

Renee, I did the math for one place for a whole animal and it would run about $250 for a 1/8 share of a 500 lb. cow. That's $5 a lb.

It looks like there may be 2 people in the Alameda group interested, so we may have almost enough for a whole cow if we gang up!

If Brian does all the research, we'll need some others to step into taking other parts. I volunteer to be the distribution point again, so I can also do the dividing with help from someone else. That means we'll need someone else to be the point man with our decided rancher, & collect the checks, someone to do the actual pick up, and someone to help me divide stuff up. Can anyone think of anything else?

1. Someone needs to do the research to find a supplier, the cost, time, etc.
2. We need to gather enough people to divide a half or whole animal. So far we seem to have 3. Any other?
3. Someone needs to contact the rancher to place the order.
4. Someone needs to gather checks to make payment.
5. Someone needs to pick up the beef.
6. Someone needs to divide up shares.
7. Someone needs to host a pick up place.

If this sounds daunting, it really isn't if we all share (the point of the group). All the information you need is under The Toolbox on this site. I did all of it when we got our pig this spring, so I'm looking for someone else to get this started.